Articles by Andy Brett

NYC takes to hybrids for (some of ) its taxi fleet

Just in case you missed it, New York City is going to start using hybrids as taxis.

NYC also has a plethora of hybrid buses. I caught one of these last winter and didn't even notice a difference until it pulled away and I saw the hybrid label on the side.

Macroeconomy as microecosystem

To follow up on this post, it's great when ecologists and economists start speaking the same language. Even better is when they form the US Society for Ecological Economics. If you're the conference type they are having their third biennial conference next week.

Even if you won't be in the Tacoma area, though, one of their policy briefs is of particular note. Written by Herman E. Daly of the University of Maryland, it covers "Economic Growth and Development." But it has a very environmental twist.

It's a Word document and it's only 1.5 pages. Go read it. To further entice those terrified of commitment, two particularly poignant excerpts are below.

The opportunity costs of not taking mass transit

Anyone who has watched someone pull a bonehead maneuver on the road only to pull up next to the driver and see that he or she is on a cell phone can attest that it's hard to multi-task while driving. And given the uphill battle to get people out of cars and using mass transit, some of the benefits of ditching the car could use some (re)framing. For example:

• Mass transit cuts down on the opportunity cost of transit. It frees the rider up to do anything, from preparing for the day at work to just getting your head together or decompressing after a stressful day, instead of having to be alert and focus on yet another task: navigating rush-hour traffic.
• Mass transit is the logical next step in an industrialized society, since it furthers the division of labor by allocating the task of moving people around to those who are best at it. Not everyone is a great driver.
• Mass transit has none of the overhead costs present in cars.
• You can't sleep and drive across the country at the same time.

Granted, there are some things inherent in driving that are irreplaceable and not transferable to mass transit. There's a certain romance about driving from coast to coast, and a certain excitement that comes from shifting a manual transmission into fourth gear. The majority of driving, though, is neither of these. It's mundane, point-A-to-point-B drudgery through rush-hour traffic, which mass transit can easily match or improve upon.

Wind for the long haul

A picture's worth a thousand words, and this graphic from the IEA hammers home the point that if you're looking for a long-term energy source, wind is it.

The image is included in an article in The Economist titled "The Shape of Things to Come?" It's a thorough account of the different angles to the current discussion over nuclear.

Also in nuclear news: The Australian reports on some objections to nuclear based on the life-cycle analysis argument, and Alternative Energy Blog has some good discussion on the paper.